Racists Shut Down Government to Promote Racist Agenda

Less than an hour later, Mr. Schumer was meeting with Mr. Trump over cheeseburgers in the president’s study next to the Oval Office. The White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, was there, as was Mr. Schumer’s chief of staff, Mike Lynch.

As the meal progressed, an outline of an agreement was struck, according to one person familiar with the discussion: Mr. Schumer said yes to higher levels for military spending and discussed the possibility of fully funding the president’s wall on the southern border with Mexico. In exchange, the president agreed to support legalizing young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

Mr. Schumer left the White House believing he had persuaded the president to support a short, three to four-day spending extension to finalize an agreement, which would also include disaster funding and health care measures.

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A White House official said that Mr. Schumer raised the possibility of a one or two-day extension, but Mr. Trump told Mr. Schumer to work out the details of a short-term measure with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader.

A short time later Mr. Schumer called the president, the person said, but the conversation drove the pair even further apart. The immigration concessions from Democrats were not conservative enough, Mr. Trump told Mr. Schumer. The president said he needed more border security measures as well as more enforcement of illegal immigration in parts of the country far from the border.

As the evening wore on, Mr. Schumer got a call from Mr. Kelly that dashed all hopes for a Trump-Schumer deal before the shutdown deadline of midnight. Mr. Kelly, a hard-liner on immigration, the person familiar with the call said, outlined a long list of White House objections to the deal.

OK, it’s also that Donald Trump is a tremendously stupid man who just repeats what the last person to talk to him says. But when that last person is John Kelly/Steven Miller/Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, he will always go back to flaming racism after talking to Democrats about a deal.

This is why I believe this shutdown could last months. One of two things happen–Democrats cave on DACA or Republicans cave on DACA. There are enough nervous centrist Democrats that the former is possible, but the “shithole” comment makes that much harder. Maybe if Democrats win in PA-15, it moves Republicans to save themselves through making a deal, but this seems awfully unlikely. Ultimately, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump are going to have to agree to allow Dreamers to stay in the country in a non-discriminatory away. And what is going to make them ever do that? These people care about two things and they are in the following order: 1) Giving rich people money. 2) Making America White Again.

So I am extremely pessimistic this ends soon. Would prefer to be wrong.